Day: June 2, 2022

Nsuta Wassaw (W/R), June 02, GNA- The total of 132 employees of Ghana Manganese Company Limited (GMCL) at Nsuta Wassaw in the Tarkwa-Nusaem Municipality, have been awarded for their long service to the company.

The employees who had served between 10 to 25 years received cash prizes, television sets, citations and certificates.

Speaking at the event, the Managing Director of the company, Mr Jurgen Eijgendaal, expressed gratitude to the employees for working tirelessly to sustain the company.

“These are special moments that you need to cherish and reflect on because some of you are in the middle of your career life and you need to ask yourself what have l achieved, where am l heading towards, how do l see my life and future. The good thing about GMCL is that after 106 years of mining we still have a long future” he said.

Mr Eijgendaal continued, “I know GMCL has a stable workforce. Our staff are known to be with the company for a very long period and that in these times is very exceptional because a lot of companies keep coming and going.

“Nsuta is a beautiful place to work, and it has changed over the last years, it has changed in positive ways, but it also has to change in smaller ways because we are 106-years old.

“As human beings grow old, our infrastructure in the company also does same so we have to rethink and try to improve upon but the equipment that we work with has rapidly changed because GMCL is currently having one of the most modern mining fleets in Ghana and we are proud of that”.

Madam Korkor Addy, Head of Human Capital for GMCL, indicated that in any organisation the recognition of people who have dedicated their time and efforts to the profitability of the company was important.

“That’s why we took this opportunity to reward, acknowledge and honour them for this long service and make them happy to inspire others in the firm that hard work and dedication really pay off,” she noted.

Madam Addy said the management of the company would continue to provide a safe environment for the staff to go about their duties.

Some 27 individuals who participated in GMCL’s community apprenticeship training programme for one year were also presented with their certificates, Mr Ebenezer Sam Onuawontor, Human Resource Industrial Relation, and Site Services Manager announced.

He said the second batch of another 27 people have been enrolled and the training would commence soon, adding that, the apprenticeship programme was set up to meet the needs of individuals in their host communities who were interested in their work.

Mr Onuawontor appealed to heads in the various departments of the company to give the opportunity to those who have completed the apprenticeship programme to work with them when there is a vacancy.

One of the award winners on behalf of his colleagues thanked the company for the gesture.

Source: Ghana News Agency

The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has reminded food vendors nationwide of the need to acquire “Food Hygiene Permit” from the Authority to legalise their operations or face legal actions – a jail term, fine or both.

The permit requires that the Authority inspects the work environment of the vendor to ascertain its hygienic nature, the personal hygiene exhibited by workers around food as well as the condition of groceries used to cook and sell to customers.

Ms Maria-Lovelace Johnson, the Director, Inspectorate Directorate of the FDA, who gave the caution in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, asked operators of food joints to visit the FDA’s website (www.fdaghana.gov.gh) or office to apply for the permit.

“So you pay a little amount, fill a form, and we will go and inspect your work environment and give you the permit. If we pay visits and you are caught without it, you can be fined, jailed or given both,” she cautioned.

The step is part of the FDA’s “Progressive Licensing Scheme” and overall mandate, to promote food safety and public health.

Section 130 (1) of the Public Health Act 2012 (Act 851) states that: “A person shall not manufacture for sale, sell, supply or store products regulated under this part except in premises registered for the purpose under this part.”

The Act, therefore, requires that all food establishments, including ‘chop bar’ operators regularised their activities by making their structures available to the FDA for inspection as part of the licensing process.

Ms Johnson, who said the step would be strictly enforced, asked the already registered facilities to display their certificates or permits where it could be spotted by the Authority and potential customers and advised the public to look out for such permits from eateries before buying from them.

The Director described food safety as the assurance that food when consumed according to its intended purpose would not cause harm to the consumer, adding that it was, therefore, the obligation of the Authority to ensure that the public did not buy “danger” into their bodies.

“You must make sure that after taking food, you don’t have to suffer any consequences. People after gathering money to buy food, do not have to experience ill consequences like diarrhea,” she said.

She said safe food gave consumers good health and nourishment, and safeguarded them from health problems like gastroenteritis (diarrhea and vomiting), headaches, tummy aches.

Ms Johnson explained that foods could be contaminated through biological, chemical and physical means, where biological means being caused by microorganisms like bacteria, viruses, parasites, protozoa, fungi and prions.

Chemical contamination occurred when food was contaminated by cleaning products, pesticides and herbicides from unwashed fruits and vegetables, while physical contamination is when an object enters food at some stage of the production, preparation or serving process.

“There are fungi like Aspergillus flavus that cause some black thing in there and produces exotoxin and the famous Aflatoxin, so things like these make the food unsafe because no matter the treatment you give to the Aflatoxin, it is still heat stable,” she said.

She advised operators of food joints to prioritise the health and safety of the public to sustain their businesses.

Source: Modern Ghana

Accra, June 2, GNA – Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) within the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) have been urged to adopt integrated solid waste management approach to address the seasonal flooding in Accra.

Dr Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Korle Klottey, said that approach was necessary to create a sustainable management of waste to ensure that solid waste did not end up in the drains, thereby contributing to seasonal flooding in Accra.

The MP made the appeal in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the Seventh Anniversary of the June 3 Flood Disaster.

On June 3, 2015, Ghana experienced the worst flood disaster with the combination of a fire outbreak at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle that claimed more than 150 lives and left scores of others injured/homeless.

Dr Agyeman-Rawlings offered her sincere condolences to the families of the deceased and said the various MMDAs needed to adopt an integrated approach among themselves to ensure that their waste was not swept into other municipal areas.

“For example, my Municipal Area, which is the Korle Klottey, is downstream to many of the others and a lot of the rubbish that you find coming through the Asylum Down drain does not originate from my constituency or municipal area,” she said, adding that it often choked the drains, which eventually led to flooding of the city.

She said Accra had a lot of seasonal streams but the planning of housing and other structures covered up those streams until the rainy season started.

“Accra is low-lying and the names we have actually reflect the fact that there are water bodies here like the Korle Bu, Sakumono, and Odawna,” she said.

Touching on factors that lead to flooding in the City, Dr Agyeman-Rawlings, who indicated that there were several factors involved, and mentioned the increase in population density without a corresponding increase in the volume or the capacity of the drains for water to find its way into the sea.

She said building on waterways and throwing of solid waste into drains were some of the contributory factors to the Accra floods.

“So, not enough is being done in terms of enforcement of the law with regards to the treatment of the waste, the segregation of the waste and proper disposal of waste,” she said.

“We are not seeing enough people being penalised for actually breaking these bylaws and other regulations that are meant to keep our cities clean.”

Dr Agyeman-Rawlings appealed to the MMDAs to ensure that their environmental laws were enforced to the letter.

She said seasonal flooding of Accra impacted on human lives, human security and the socio-economic wellbeing of constituents, especially those in the lower socio-economic class.

Source: Ghana News Agency

Member of defunct Hiplife group 5Five, Frederick Danquah, popularly known as Papi has indicated that it is okay for married men to cheat.

Basing his claims on the biblical character King Solomon, Papi stated that the king was blessed abundantly by God despite having several wives and concubines.

According to him, God doesn’t frown on polygamy.

“Eating one thing can kill you, if we have married, stay home so that your husband can play around. In the bible, women did not cheat so it is not right for them to cheat now.

“But Solomon who was hearing the voice of God married several women and kept several concubines so how much more of us who are not even closer to God? We will have to beat him to his game,” he said during an interview on Accra-based radio station, Okay FM.

He added that women are to remain loyal to their husbands because the bible has never approved of women having multiple partners.

Source: Modern Ghana

Accra, June 2, GNA – Stakeholders in the digital labour platforms economy have called for a comprehensive inter-agency engagement to share and implement initiatives that would benefit all sides and remove perceived exploitation of workers.

They called on workers, government-related and allied agencies to engage each other to ensure that issues and differences were resolved amicably while ensuring the safety of the workers.

Stakeholders also called for a government policy on issues relating to contracts, representation, conditions and management as well as a releasing workable regulation on the current unfavourable bias in working conditions. 

The stakeholders expressed their views at a Fairwork workshop on the working conditions of digital labour platforms in Ghana, which was attended by representatives from government institutions and gig workers and employers.

The workshop is part of a series of engagements with relevant stakeholders towards improving the working conditions of gig workers in Ghana.

The Fairwork Ghana project evaluates the working conditions of digital labour platforms against five global principles of Fairwork, including fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and fair representation.

Platforms operating in Ghana, including Uber, Bolt, Bolt Food, Yango, Black Ride, Swift Wheel, IFerch, Eziban, Jumia Food and Glovo, are scored against all five principles to assess whether they provide basic labour standards like minimum wage or protection against accidents. 

The Workers on these digital platforms have raised concerns about their poor remuneration and Conditions of Service, complaining that they work long hours and are exposed to many risks without justifiable reward.

Mr Francis Tengey, President of the Online Drivers Union, said the drivers on the online platforms were not making any money as the packages designed on the various platforms were making them poor.

Dr Lawrence Simpi of the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations called for a comprehensive engagement and a more simplified contractual agreement between the workers and the various platforms to ensure fairness.

The Fairwork Ghana project is supported by ‘Invest for Jobs’ of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. Invest for Jobs is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH among others. 

Source: Ghana News Agency

Veteran Ghanaian media personality and satirist, Kweku Sintim Misa (KSM) believes that the IGP’s letter to the British High Commissioner, Madam Harriet Thompson over her tweet on the arrest of Oliver Barker – Vormawor was wrongly done.

In a recent interview on Star FM, KSM expressed that IGP Dr. George Akufo Dampare could have channeled his response through the Foreign Ministry.

According to him, the IGP’s four-page letter was an overreaction to a trivial issue.

KSM expressed surprise at the IGP’s response to the tweet, adding that he created ‘a storm in a teacup’.

“I think protocol – wise we have the Foreign Ministry and if any reason if the IGP is not happy about the tweet, I think he should have passed through the Foreign Ministry,” he said.

Madam Harriet Thompson had tweeted about the Fix The Country convener’s arrest.

“Oliver Barker – Vormawor, convener of the #FixTheCountry movement, arrested again, I understand it’s for a motoring offense and he is currently on his way to court. I’ll be interested to see where this goes,” her tweet dated Tuesday, May 17, 2022, read.

In his response, IGP George Akufo Dampare stated that the High Commissioner’s comments were biased and uninformed.

Source: Modern Ghana

Accra, June 02, GNA – Many girls in the Eastern region have been retained in school after receiving sanitary pads from Plan International Ghana, a nongovernmental organisation (NGO) while observing this year’s Menstrual Hygiene Day.

The usual dropping out of school every month for some periods was reversed when the NGO distributed over 4,000 sanitary pads to girls in schools in the Okere District in the Region.

Beneficiary communities were Okrakwadwo, Mintakrom, Beware, Asenema and Krutiase.

Dr Augustine Ankuvie, the Okere District Health Director, said some girls in the area had dropped out of school and others had gotten pregnant in the municipality due to a lack of sanitary pads.

The negative social norm, he said, affected girls’ health, safety and dignity, and kept them out of school, a situation that prevented them from getting equal education opportunities.

Dr Ankuvie said the gesture had therefore given them assurance of the return of some of the girls to school at least for the periods they had gotten sanitary pads for, and commended Plan International Ghana for the intervention which was timely.

Madam Lillian Bruce, the Gender Specialist, Plan International Ghana, addressing the gathering at Okrakwadwo, bemoaned how many of the girls had stopped schooling due to the negative social norms surrounding menstrual hygiene management and lack of access to sanitary pads.

She said the gesture was to help the girls meet some of their needs as they went through their menstrual cycle, especially in the rural communities where they could not afford the sanitary pads.

The Gender Specialist urged traditional leaders and authorities to educate society to break the silence and taboo, raise awareness and change negative social norms surrounding menstrual hygiene management, especially among the male counterparts.

Source: Ghana News Agency

A US jury has found Amber Heard defamed ex-husband Johnny Depp with an article in which she claimed she was a victim of domestic abuse.

Jurors awarded Mr Depp – who denied abusing Ms Heard – $15m (£12m) in compensatory and punitive damages.

Ms Heard, 36, won one of three counter-claims against Mr Depp, 58, and was awarded $2m in compensatory damages.

The Hollywood stars, who divorced in 2017, presented conflicting versions of their doomed relationship in the trial.

Over six weeks, the court in Fairfax, Virginia, heard tawdry details of Mr Depp and Ms Heard’s tempestuous marriage, and its unhappy ending.

Polls suggested many Americans were more interested in the legal drama than the war in Ukraine or a potentially historic ruling on abortion expected any day from the US Supreme Court.

Coverage of the trial – which was televised and live-streamed – hit billions of views on social media.

After nearly two days of deliberations, jurors found on Wednesday that Ms Heard’s statements about her marriage were “false” and she had acted with “actual malice”.

But they also found that Mr Depp had defamed Ms Heard when his lawyer gave a statement to the Daily Mail in 2020 calling her abuse allegations a hoax.

As the seven-member jury delivered its verdict, screams and chants of “Johnny, Johnny, Johnny” erupted outside the court.

Mr Depp was not in court due to “previously scheduled work commitments”, his spokesperson said. The actor was said to be watching from the United Kingdom, where he has played three surprise concerts alongside his friend, British musician Jeff Beck since the jury began deliberating on Friday.

Source: Modern Ghana